


My brother under the sun

by AgapantoBlu



Series: Bee Is A Safe Place [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew & Aaron's joint sessions, But again it's only mentioned, Consensual Underage Sex, Gen, It regards Nicky, It's the Minyard twins, Murder, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Reference to Conversion Therapy, The ship tags are mostly implied, Therapy, You know what it means, also, mentions of - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 15:22:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13790523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgapantoBlu/pseuds/AgapantoBlu
Summary: Bee took one look at them and Andrew knew she knew. She smiled, though, and picked up two mugs of hot chocolate that she placed on the table in front of the couch.Andrew claimed the right corner, Aaron the left. They could have fitted Nicky in between them. And why not? Let’s invite him along too! A big family reunion in Bee’s study, and what could possibly ever go wrong? The last one went oh so well.(Andrew and Aaron's joint sessions with Bee, an all but easy trip.)





	My brother under the sun

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story that focuses on the sessions Andrew and Aaron did with Bee together, it means that all the possible warning that apply to these characters are here too. There's also one mention of consensual underage sex for Nicky and a few bits related to his time in the conversion camp, so again, be careful. The story also covers Aaron's trial for Drake's murder so, yeah, all happiness and rainbows.
> 
> Seriously, I tried to tag all that could be tagged, if I missed something tell me, but don't venture into this if you know it's possibly harmful for you. It's the same discourse as for "Therapy Session".
> 
> That said, I'm tired, it's late, editing was a nightmare. Send help.

 

 

Here’s the thing: Bee is _Andrew’s_ safe place. Okay? It’s easy. She’s _his_ therapist, she knows all of _his_ shit and she keeps _his_ fucking secrets. It’s Andrew against the world 24/7 with the mere exception of when he is in her study, then it’s Andrew against Andrew as Bee plays referee. She’s completely on _his_ side, the first ever.

And it’s not about Aaron intruding, though it is, in part, he should have fucking asked, like, who the fuck does he think he is?! But the fact is that Aaron intrudes, elbows his way into Andrew’s private time and then he just fucking _sulks_ in silence.

That’s what pisses Andrew off. What is he even doing here, if he’s not going to talk?

Except Andrew knows. Aaron is here to listen. He expects to hear his twin pouring his heart out and suddenly have a revelation, to suddenly _understand_  everything about him.

Fucking ironic, when he never listened to Andrew’s words once in their whole lives.

 

 

The first time Aaron sneaked into Andrew’s session, they went close to murder. 

Andrew walked in and Aaron just went along and he stared because he surely had to want something? But no. He sat on the couch, he glowered at Bee who just smiled back like nothing was happening.

Andrew’s skin itched. It was awful and generalized, it was all his body straining against his edges just to test them, to make sure they were all there still.

This was _Andrew’s time_. Aaron had no business in it. It was his fucking time! _Mine!_

“Get out,” he growled. He didn’t care. He would grab his twin and physically throw him out, except he couldn't because he promised to protect him and he couldn't hurt him, couldn't hurt him,  _can't hurt him, won’t hurt him, won't be like them, won’t be like her._ “ _Bee_."

“Andrew, would you like to sit down for a moment?”

“Send him out.”

“I’m not leaving.” _I will fucking make you!_

“Aaron.” Bee’s voice cut the tension with just a tiny bit of steel in the curl around the ‘r’. “While I may believe that having joint sessions may help you both, this is still Andrew’s time, and you’re a guest into it. I am sure you wouldn’t appreciate someone barging into your house uninvited, would you?”

_Uninvited_ , yeah, that was sure. Andrew never wanted Aaron, he sure as fuck didn’t go looking for him. He wasn’t the one who reached out and then pulled his hand back when things didn’t go as he wanted anymore.

“Funny, because that’s what he’s always doing!” Aaron turned to him, uncaring of Bee. “You can’t skip your sessions, they’re court mandated. And if this is the only way I can get you to talk, then I’ll fucking sit here for the whole next year.”

“ _Try_.” It’s a threat. Andrew couldn’t act on it, because he made a promise. But Aaron never knew what it meant to keep a promise, did he?

His twin had something to say, something scalding, something that would break the thin dam on his self-restrain. No meds to keep him from lashing out anymore.

Bee spoke first. “You will not.”

Just like that, Andrew could relax a bit. Bee was on his side. Bee got it.

Aaron turned his head to her fast, but she held his glare with the same unbothered openness that won Andrew’s mistrust over. She looked at him and took back nothing, made herself an island Aaron could not colonize nor infect, a safe place once again. “You told Josten—“

“Neil asked me if I thought I could help you two with your relationship if he got you both here, and that’s true,” she nodded. And oh, didn’t someone stick his nose where it didn’t belong just  _again_? Andrew would have to take care of that. His fingers itched for a cigarette. “But Aaron, getting you two here did not mean _physically_ and that’s that. I’m not a medic, I cannot heal you whether you want it or not. Therapy doesn’t work if it’s not a full collaboration of all the parts involved, and you cannot force your brother into feeling safe or at ease with you.” Her eyes found Andrew’s stiff form, still on his feet beside the couch. “Just like you can’t force Aaron into being with you."

Andrew clenched his fists. Aaron crossed his arms. Weren’t they just so similar, at times? Fucking hilarious.

“I don’t want him here,” he repeated.

Bee nodded. “I acknowledge your feelings on the matter. May I tell you my opinion?”

Andrew shrugged. It was as good as a yes he was willing to say in front of his brother. He didn’t want Aaron to see how much he valued Bee’s thoughts.

She smiled, and pushed forward one of the three chocolate cups in front of her. “I think both you and your brother searched for a bond in different ways. You grew up in very different settings and the ways you see and interact with the world are opposite. You could almost say you don’t speak same language on many topics. Despite this, you’ve lived together largely expecting the other to understand for a very long time.” She crossed her fingers in her lap. “I do believe that we could make these joint sessions into a moment for you two to have an healthy confrontation on neutral ground. If the both of you are willing to work with me, that is.”

Aaron huffed. It was too sarcastic to be a yes. 

_You want it to be a yes._

_Fuck you._

“Andrew.” He blinked. Bee looked at him in the intent way he knew as her recognizing a sign of dissociation or retreat in him, as her offering a hand to pull him back into his body so he could fill back every corner. “If you feel uncomfortable with this, we’ll stop and go back to singular sessions. You are my patient, I would never jeopardize your mental health for this."

“So I am his problem, now?!” Aaron growled. 

_You have been since day one_ , Andrew wanted to tell him. _You are my fucking problem, but you think I’m a problem, hopefully someone else’s, and full stop._

Bee smiled. It wasn’t directed at anyone, and it wasn’t serene. “People have boundaries, Aaron. I am not referring to only physical boundaries, like the so called bubble of personal space. There are also emotional and psychological boundaries that are just as important. When you sit in Andrew’s therapy sessions, you’re pushing into a border of his, which is his time to talk about his emotions and receive professional help where needed. It’s a violation, can you see it? Before stepping in, you should have asked your brother’s permission because this is a space that is supposed to be _his_.”

Andrew waited for the pin to drop. For the screams to start and the denial to arrive. It was already too late, anyway. Bee’s study was safe before, but now it had been invaded. Aaron was in. What was to say he would not do it again another time, no matter what Bee said? It felt like Andrew would never be able to talk freely anymore, not even in here. It felt like a cage chocking the air out of him.

_Stop overreacting!_

“If Andrew says he wants you out, you should respect it. Otherwise, you’re invading a border and invalidating his feelings, which is a form of abuse.”

Andrew didn’t want to look at him. He didn’t. Aaron had his arms wrapped even tighter around himself, and Andrew was staring at him and fuck him because he was staring at Bee, instead. Andrew was looking at him and he refused to look back.

“We cannot go on like this,” Aaron said. “You must know how much shit is going on. We’re going to implode before graduation, like this."

“That may be true,” Bee acknowledged. “Regardless, no greater good allows you the right to trample over someone’s personal boundaries.”

“I don’t want to trample over them!”

“Then what?” It was an ugly voice for him. A cold hiss out of a throat scratched raw. “What the fuck do you want?” _You ask for stuff and you hate me even more when I give it to you._

Aaron let out a frustrated growl. Then he ran his hands through his hair. He looked caged, and Andrew felt sadistically happy, because now his twin knew how he’d been feeling since the beginning of this session. “I just want to get to a truce. I don’t want to get into your boundaries, but I want you to stop getting into mine!"

“That is an whole other problem, and it should be addressed too.” Bee called both their gazes on her. She ran her eyes on both their strained faces and tensed shoulders, then she looked at Andrew. “We can schedule some face-to-face sessions too outside of these joint ones, if you want. I think it could help you a great deal, but it’s ultimately your choice.”

What a fucking joke. Andrew could count the stuff that was his own free choice on one hand.

He picked his chocolate mug, and he wanted to sit on the couch but ended up falling on it with all his weight, somehow dead, somehow too tired already.

_You’re so desperate not to be left alone, whimpering for your brother not to go. It’s pathetic._

“He won’t stay,” which was not a no, and both he and Bee knew it. It didn’t matter what Andrew wanted, Aaron would go because that was what Aaron always did.

Renee prayed, Neil ran and Aaron turned his back on him. People, they had their own habits.

His brother was glaring now, but Andrew refused to look at him. It was just polite to pay someone back with their same coin, no?

Bee smiled. “I guess it’s settled, then. I’ll text you for those singular sessions, if you’d like me to, Andrew, but as of now we have a quarter of an hour left to this session. Is there anything any of you would like to talk about?"

Andrew kept quiet. Aaron did the same.

Oh, the fucking irony.

 

 

He planned on strangling Neil, throwing him off the rooftop, burning him to ashes like his mother. He could visual the whole fact in his mind.

He didn’t. 

He was too tired to think of the implications of it.

 

 

Katelyn was worth it, Aaron thought. She really was, so who cared if he had to spend an hour a week with Andrew’s shrink? He was doing it for her.

“Not for me, Aaron,” she said, running her hand down his cheek, brushing her fingers against a scratch he got himself while shaving, that morning.

They were laying on her bed above the sheets, hugging each others, relaxing. He still felt breathless after today’s session, and Andrew’s words, “ _He won’t stay_ ”, burned inside. 

_He asked Neil to stay._

“I wish you could see this is for you too."

Katelyn was too good to see the mess in him. She couldn’t understand. He let her lull him to sleep anyway.

 

 

Andrew had never wanted to strangle someone as badly as he wanted to kill Aaron when he slipped in his car the following week.

“Get off.”

“No, fuck you.”

Andrew swerved a bit too tight on every turn he could. By the time they made it to Bee’s, Aaron’s arm had to be mottled with bruises from slamming repeatedly against the car door. Good.

Bee took one look at them and Andrew knew she knew. She smiled, though, and picked up two mugs of hot chocolate that she placed on the table in front of the couch.

Andrew claimed the right corner, Aaron the left. They could have fitted Nicky in between them. And why not? Let’s invite him along too! A big family reunion in Bee’s study, and what could possibly ever go wrong? The last one went _oh so well._

“It’s nice to see you both again,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you’d come again, after last time. How was practice?”

“Josten keeps whining because Abby won’t clear him to play,” Aaron spat, sneering.

Oh, it looked like they were going to have to do without a striker and also a back-liner now, wasn’t that a pity? Kevin would blow a fuse.

Bee pretended not to pick on the venom. “I imagine it must be frustrating for him. And what about class? How are you doing, Aaron?”

Andrew wanted to gag at the look of utter surprise in his brother’s face. Like he was expecting Bee to ignore him the same way he ignored her, or to only address Andrew. He wanted in on the sessions, but he didn’t want to do his part. Typical Aaron.

“He’s at the library so often you’d think they’re going to start charging him rent there, Bee, did you know? Though I have no idea how much studying he actually gets done when he spends all his time with his tongue down the cheerleader’s throat.”

Bee’s reproaching “ _Andrew_ ” got lost under Aaron’s hissed “ _Fuck you_ ”. What? They wanted him to talk, he was talking. People were just never happy, really.

“No, you know what? Let’s do this. It’s what I’m here for, after all, am I not?”

“I have no idea why you are here, brother dearest, and don’t make the mistake of assuming I give a single fuck about it.”

“ _Alright, time out,_ ” Aaron’s mouth shut close and Andrew’s glare moved on Bee, but she held her hands, palms out, to both of them with no hesitation. She looked much like a lion tamer or that guy from Jurassic Park. 

Andrew pictured himself as a dinosaur and almost puked. 

He used to like dinosaurs when he was a kid. A very little kid. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment he stopped bothering with liking anything. He liked them even after Steven, but didn’t anymore when Jesse happened and—

_Stop. Fucking stop, goddammit._

“Andrew,” Bee called. He blinked twice to bring her to focus again. He could tell from her expression that she’d caught on his detachment, but she was smart enough not to bring it up. Instead, her eyes slipped on Aaron and she frowned. 

Only when she lowered her hands slowly and called to him softly, Andrew realized that his brother had pushed himself deeper into the couch, as if to put as much physical distance from himself and Bee.

Seemed that someone else had his own demons to make him flinch. What a not-surprise.

“I can see that this situation is hard on both sides,” Bee said. It sounded like a joke, when they both sat so strung up and wary, two bunches of tense muscles ready to bolt at the first startle. “I understand, and I think a good point would actually be to lay all cards on the table. Which is to say, what are you expecting from these sessions and what your reasons are to take part to them.”

Bee was getting down to business, wasn’t she? Andrew liked it. She was open and honest, no second meanings or mind games. All in the open. _Yes. Let’s air the dirty laundry_.

“Aaron? Since you were the one who asked to join in,—” _asked who?!_ , “—why don’t you tell your brother what brought you to this choice?”

Aaron snarled. “His fuck-boy.”

Andrew stilled his body completely. He would not react to that. He didn’t care. So what if his brother was a prissy ass who called Neil names? Andrew called Neil plenty of names, himself. Who cared? Surely not Andrew. No. Not at all.

Bee, apparently, cared. “It is not very polite of you, to call Neil such a term in front of Andrew.”

“He calls Katelyn even worse!”

“ _Mommy, mommy, he started it,_ ” Andrew almost chocked on the word. He wanted to gag and spit and wash his mouth with soap for just saying it. Instead, he mustered up a smirk when Aaron glared at him.

“Then we have something to start working on as soon as we’re done with this topic,” Bee declared, scribbling something on her block notes before looking back up at Aaron. _Don’t look at him!_ “First, I’d like for us to finish with this. Aaron, would you like to go on?”

It was written all over his face that he didn’t, but he scoffed anyway. “ _Neil_ forced me to come here.”

Andrew had heard all of this already, in the car on that first session. But not in the details. He scolded himself, when he realized he was curious about how that went, exactly.

“And how did he do that?” Bee asked. “You will forgive me, but I find it hard to believe you may be keeping Neil’s opinion in such high regards to follow his suggestion.”

Aaron growled. “He told Katelyn to force me to come here. To make me choose between coming here and fixing things with Andrew or losing her. I didn’t exactly have a choice, here!”

Bee tapped her pen against the page. Much like a hound who found a lead. “So, it was Katelyn, who made you come here, right?”

“Neil instigated her!”

Bee nodded along, patiently. “And what do you wish to gain from these sessions?”

To that, Aaron didn’t seem to have an answer. He frowned and kept quiet, maybe hoping Bee would let go, but Andrew knew firsthand what kind of stubborn creature she could be. In the end, his twin huffed. “Dunno,” he shrugged, but there was something, in the slight tension of the shoulders, that screamed of honesty, “To break our deal once and for all, I guess.”

_Oh, but haven’t you done such plenty enough, dear brother of mine?_ Andrew wanted to wring his neck. How many people had he granted his protection to? Four. Four in his whole life. And who had been the first? And now here Aaron was, _daring_.

_Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck y—_

“Andrew, Aaron voiced his point. What about yours? Or do you have anything to say to that?”

_Sure thing, I’d love to, why, we should go out and get coffee together sometimes!_ If that was what Bee was expecting, she must have taken some heavy pill with her morning coffee. Or maybe too much cocoa was messing up with the endorphins in her brain.

“I never had an issue with him before he started breaking his promises,” he reminded them both. “We made a _deal._ It’s not my fault he can’t uphold his end.” 

He was not going to forget this. Never. He kept his promises, always, so why couldn’t people just fucking do the same? Why couldn’t his twin?

_If not even him, who else would bother?_

“Promises, promises, promises, you’re always hung up on those shitty promises of yours!” Aaron’s voice raised considerably now. “Don’t you ever get tired of crafting these deals of yours to leash people to you? Is it that much fun, to make people miserable all the time?”

_It doesn’t hurt. Fuck you, it doesn’t hurt._ “I don’t know, have you tried asking Tilda?”

Aaron snarled. Bee must have said something, Andrew didn’t know, he couldn’t take his eyes off his brother.

Aaron picked his bag from the floor and left. He slammed the door. Andrew stood still and glared at nothing until a soft sigh managed to catch his attention.

“You can’t tell me you were expecting this to end any differently,” he said, slowly turning to watch Bee take a sip from her own cocoa. “You’re smarter than that.”

“So are you,” she retorted, meeting his eyes above the mug ring. “Do you really think going on like this is the best for you? For you alone, I mean. Do you think it’s in your best interests?”

Andrew knew this: the deal was broken, the cheerleader won, on the day of their graduation Aaron would have had his bags ready since a week already and that would be the last time Andrew saw his twin, for sure. Oh, well, it was good while it lasted. _Except not really._

“You know me, Bee,” he said instead. “I’m self-destructive.”

She looked at him with a pensive face. She put her mug down and laid her hands on the notepad in her lap, but made no move to pick the pen up. 

“You’d rather sink your own ship than having it wrecked by someone else.” She said, “You’re only self-destructive when you think someone else is coming to break you.”

Andrew got up, left, slammed the door. The irony of his gestures, like Aaron’s, was like a slap to the face.

 

 

Aaron. Wouldn’t. Fucking. Give.

Andrew refused to unlock the car when he found him waiting by the Maserati next week, but the asshole sat on the hood. What were the odds he had to open the car, get inside and drive away before the idiot made it into the passenger seat?

“I’ll walk there if I have to,” Aaron threatened. Andrew flipped him the bird.

It was a silent drive in the sense that Andrew turned the music volume up enough to drown out every curse and cuss of his twin and that was it.

When they arrived, Bee had two mugs of cocoa and one of some kind of herbal shit. Andrew glared at it, but Aaron seemed surprised and accepted it together with Bee’s gentle smile.

She walked them through the usual pre-session chats. How had been the week, how was Aaron’s studying, how was Andrew dealing with Kevin’s do-I-call-him-Dad-or-Coach crisis — _by throwing stuff at the idiot_ — and how was Nicky. That caused a moment of tension when both of them went to answer and almost talked over each other.

Bee just smiled, and Andrew considered not buying her a figurine on their next trip.

“He’s planning on going to Stuttgart for Christmas break,” Aaron said, side-eyeing his twin as if hoping to know something more than him, to _win_ , like this was a stupid contest. And Andrew already knew, anyway. “He’s planning the expenses for the next months because plane tickets cost almost twice during the festivities.”

They could cost even thrice as much, Nicky would go anyway. Neil was already planning on buying them for him, just to get him out of Columbia so he and Andrew could go there themselves and be spared the unavoidable breakdown Kevin would have after his first family Christmas.

It was absurd how much in Andrew’s life was being interrupted by the revelation of Wymack being a father. Not even if he himself were the son, he would be dragged in this much. He never signed up for this bullshit.

“Now, I know last time we finished this session a bit brusquely—,” was Bee saying jokes now?, she should do stand-up comedy, “—but I’d like to pick from where we had left it, because I have a few questions I’d like you two to answer, if that’s okay?”

Andrew didn’t answer. Aaron was anxious enough to look like an idiot, anyway. “Isn’t it your call?” he said, indeed. “You’re the shrink here.”

Bee tilted her head in his direction, almost — _almost_ — surprised. “I think there might be a misunderstanding. Aaron, I’m not here to tell you what to do or say; I’m here to listen to what you both want to talk about and help you find a way to deal with anything that might come up. I’m not the leading role, here; I’m the support.”

Aaron knew jack-shit about therapy. What was new? It’s not like his own brother had been doing it for years, or anything like that, right?

“And in order to do that at the best of my abilities, I need to know what goals we are trying to reach,” Bee kept on, unfazed. “That’s why I asked you what you hoped to achieve from these sessions.” She looked at her notepad. “You said Katelyn has asked you to be here, in exchange for staying together, because Neil talked her into doing so.”

Aaron made a face. “You make it seem like she’s the one who’s in the wrong.”

Andrew might have to reconsider Aaron’s mental faculties. There seem to be something still working, in that field of burned neurons. Maybe the drugs spared some synapsis. 

Bee jotted something down on her pad as she nodded to herself. “I would like to ask you, how do you think this happened? I mean, do you think he forced her?, blackmailed her?”

Aaron blinked. Andrew rectified his thought from before, as clearly nothing had been saved in his brother’s brain. _He_ could see where Bee was going from a mile away already. “No, but— I wouldn’t have let him.”

Bee smiled gently. “Well, let’s try to put things in order for a moment, can we? What you are saying is that Neil explained his… _plan_ , to Katelyn, am I right?” Aaron nodded. “And then she carried it on. Why do you think she did that?”

“W-why?” Aaron looked still confused. Andrew huffed, but Bee sent him a scolding look.

“I mean, what do you think her reasons may have been? I don’t believe she’s that close to Neil that she’d do him a favor that could jeopardize her relationship with you, and I don’t believe she has much interest in Andrew either, from what I got. So why would she do that, in your opinion?”

Aaron fidgeted in his seat. He wrapped his arms around his stomach maybe without even realizing, and his legs made a couple aborted motion to move on the couch as well, to curl him into a ball and hide him from the confrontation.

_You don’t care. He threw your protection to the nettles, he doesn’t want it anymore._

“She—” He couldn’t say it, Andrew knew it. Aaron liked to push faults of people he didn’t like just to keep those he cared for completely innocent. “She thinks it would be good for me,” he admitted at last. “But it’s not her place to say!”

“You are right, it’s not up to her to decide what’s best for you,” Bee acquiesced. “I am just curious, why do you think she may believe it?” 

Aaron didn’t answer that. Bee waited several moments before smiling gently at him. “I am sure you can see, Aaron, that it looks like the main reason you are here is not Neil himself, but how much you wish for Katelyn to stay in your life. I agree with you that it was not proper of her to use your relationship as a bargaining chip. We can talk more about how this makes you feel later, if you want?”

Again, no answer. This time, Bee turned to Andrew. “You hear that your brother wishes for these sessions to fix the issues between you two, but he does so mainly because of his girlfriend. How does this make you—”

“That’s not it!” 

Andrew wanted to laugh at his brother’s outrage. “That’s exactly what you said just one second ago, Aaron. Make a choice and stick to it, for once.”

“I am _here_ because _these sessions_ are my way to get Katelyn back,” Aaron said, as if he hadn’t heard him, glaring at Bee the whole time. “But I never said I don’t care about fixing our problems if not for Katelyn’s sake! I do, regardless of her!”

Andrew’s fingers twitched at the words. He clenched them in fists so tight his nails dug red lines in his palms.

He would not let hope ruin him again. He was done with that. He was done giving _Aaron_ that power. He’d seen it all happen once and that had been more than enough, for him.

Bee tilted her head to a side. This time, her smile was definitely kinder. “This is good to know, Aaron. It’s important for both of you to be clear on your feelings in regards of each others.” She turned a bit to him. “So, regardless of how you arrived here, you wish for these sessions to help fix the issues with your brother, am I right?”

Andrew stared. Aaron refused to meet his eyes, fidgeted, his legs kicked out a couple times, but then he made a short, abrupt nodding motion.

“What about you, Andrew?” He turned to her before Aaron could see his face. Bee looked at him with less gentleness and more intensity. “You didn’t ask for this, the situation has been mostly pushed on you. What do you think? Is there anything you think you could get out of this despite everything?”

Bee knew better than to use words like _want_ and _need_. Neil could learn a thing or two from her.

Andrew’s default answer, here, would be _no_. If he were anywhere else, with anyone else, he’d say it. He’d put up a good thirty barriers and hide and deny. If he were alone with Aaron, he would. But Bee. Bee was _trustworthy_ , and Andrew was not one to apply that concept to anyone.

He looked at her alone when he said, “I’m tired.”

Aaron didn’t say anything, which showed that his brain might have been burned but he still had some survival instinct intact.

Betsy knew better than to get his words at face value; she knew he was a careful picker, that there was _always_ more when he said anything. She looked at him, thoughtful, for a long moment before nodding.

“I think there’s enough will from both parts to try and find a balance between you two,” she said in the end. 

“I don’t think we’re the kind of brothers who’ll ever just chat about crushes on the couch,” Andrew slipped in. She ignored him. _Rude_.

“ _But_ , I can’t be the only one making an effort.” She looked between both of them, slowly, with clear intent. “I’m not going to ask you to play nice, I know both of you too well to delude myself—,” _smart of her_ , “—but I’d like you both to keep in mind what has just been said now, when you’re here.”

Tsk. _No fun._

Aaron muttered something and shifted in his seat, but, for once, didn’t seem prone to make a big deal out of this. Oh, the lengths they had reached already.

Seemed only fair that the rest of the session was spent in silence, right? You can’t fuck up, if you don’t talk.

 

 

They faced the Ravens. They won. Neil looked at him as if Andrew had been the one to invent Exy as a personal gift to him. Aaron brought his girlfriend along to the team celebration.

Nicky looked like he was ready to bawl his eyes out, but when did he not?

 

 

Betsy waited for them with a big smile when they met a few days later. She had put marshmallows in Andrew’s cocoa and a chocolate chips cookie beside Aaron’s tea.

“To celebrate your victory,” she smiled.

“Or to cause Kevin a heart-attack,” Aaron retorted, staring at his twin’s drink.

To prove how much he cared, Andrew picked it up and threw down a big gulp with a piece of marshmallow, still unmelted. Aaron grimaced.

“So,” Bee started, probably preemptively. “Is there anything you’d like to discuss today? Or shall we—”

“I want to talk about Nicky.” Andrew knew his words had gotten Bee’s attention, but he was more interested in Aaron’s gaping face.

“What? Why?!” he asked. Then, because he was such a smart boy, wasn’t he?, “Wait, is this because we fought yesterday? Seriously?!”

It had been, all in all, no worse than the usual quarrels between the two of them. Allison had displayed a recent picture of a bare-chested Knox with a confused as Hell Moreau, and Kevin had quite predictably stumbled in his own feet. Nicky had called out a joke, and Aaron had called him disgusting and had stomped away.

He hadn’t been there to see Nicky sigh and run a hand through his hair. To see Kevin nervously avoiding Andrew’s and Neil’s looks.

“I want to know why him,” he said, looking at his twin’s eyes, face carefully wiped blank. “I want to know why you keep on saying the stuff you do to Nicky.”

Aaron had the guts to look shocked. “Why does it matter?!”

_Why_? Andrew almost moved, almost reacted, but Bee’s calm voice preceded his fist. “Aaron, Andrew is expressing some concerns and asking for an explanation. The whole point of these sessions is for you two to communicate and solve this kind of issues. I think it would be wise to address what he brought up as whatever involves Nicky definitely has a big impact on both of you on a daily basis.”

Alas, _stop being a jerk and answer_. Bee was really too polite for her own good. One day one of her patients wouldn’t fall for her sweet words and would do something stupid that would force Andrew to break out the knives and also some necks.

Maybe he would finally find a reprieve from Exy, in jail.

Aaron was once again shifting in his seat, nervous. He had a faint blush on his cheeks, one that came from shame rather than embarrassment, and he was avoiding meeting either Bee’s or his brother’s eyes. 

With no other option, he stared down at the drink in his hands. “It’s not that he’s gay,” he said.

Andrew snorted. “Unbelievable.”

“I’m serious!”

“I _know_ , you fucking idiot,” he hissed. Aaron’s rage dampened in front of Andrew’s, and it hadn’t been a match for him to begin with. “You don’t ever throw slurs at me. Oh, you hate Neil enough and you talk all the shit about him all the time, but that’s always him as a person, not because he’s fucking with me. And you used to do it even before you found out, so that’s not because of it.”

Aaron kept on shaking his head, as if to chase away the words, as if to deny, but Andrew had allowed him to hide in the sand for far too long and he was growing tired of this pathetic display.

He was going to add to the pile, to hit deeper, when Aaron’s face twisted in a grimace and he said, “It’s because he _has Erik!”_

Andrew frowned. This was not what he was expecting. He threw a side glance at Bee, but she was scribbling something on her notepad with an unreadable expression. Damn her.

When he looked back, Aaron had changed his stance. His back buried in his corner, he was keeping his cup closer to the chest and he had raised his eyes just enough to meet his brother’s.

“He has Erik,” he repeated. The emotion in his voice was difficult to pinpoint, a mixture of resentment and desperation. “He talks about Erik all the time. _Erik here, Erik there, Erik will come, I will go to Erik, Erik, Erik, Erik_. And you don’t even fucking blink! I had to keep Katelyn and every single girl I dated before her as a fucking secret because I was scared about what you’d do to them and he gets to talk about his fucking boyfriend twenty-four seven without getting a single shit about it! How is that fair, Andrew?! Why does he get that and I _don’t_?!”

Andrew remained blank. “I didn’t make a deal with Nicky.”

“Bullshit, Andrew! If you didn’t care about him, if you didn’t feel the need to protect him, you wouldn’t have almost killed those four men, so don’t even try to feed me that shit. Why is Erik okay but Katelyn is not? Luther hurt Nicky just as much as mom hurt me, it’s not different!”

“It is.” The words came out of gritted teeth. They were threading dangerous waters, and Andrew clenched his fingers on his cup.

_Bee, stop him._

Aaron didn’t stop. “ _How._ ”

“You wouldn’t—“

“Andrew.” 

Andrew turned. He knew that, in his pinched expression, only Bee could see the surprise, the disbelief, the betrayal, he felt in that moment.

She met him halfway, with those warm eyes of hers, with her open shoulders, the wrinkles of happiness around her eyes smoothed slightly by her gentle concern. The thirteenth shrink he’d ever had, she was lasting because she’d gotten around reading all his signals, for as minute and soft they were.

So _why_ was she going against all of them? Why wasn’t she putting a stop to this?

_Why aren’t you on_ my _side?_

Bee shook her head slightly, a mollifying gesture. “Aaron may be agitated, but he’s asking for a question just like you did.” With a hand, she gestured to his twin carefully. “Maybe he won’t understand anyway—,” _he won’t!, he never does!_ , “—but he has no chance to if you don’t even try to explain.”

Why should he? What did Aaron do to deserve that? When had he earned the trust Bee had with years of unyielding support? Aaron had always ever been on the opposite side of every battle of Andrew’s!

_Get out of here. Get out of here!_

That didn’t mean anything.

_This has happened before, and you knew about it. You knew what he'd done and you brought him here anyway._

No, no, no. Andrew had been protecting him first!

“Andrew.” _Bee, Bee, Bee, get me out, Bee._ “Andrew, tell me where you are. Andrew, come back to me.”

_It’s not mine. Andrew, it’s not mine._

_Andrew._ Desperate, frightened, righteous fury seeping from every letter.

“Andrew?”

He came back.

He blinked in Bee’s direction. “Oh,” he said, “I really don’t like any of this.”

Her shoulders sagged a bit, letting out the tension that had been filling them, and her smile came back, steadier than any touch. Andrew allowed himself to hang to it as he brought his feet on the couch, his knees to his chest.

His cup of cocoa was a warm nucleus and Andrew was a dying star, somewhere far away, in a galaxy of coldness and meteorites.

_Regression and the need for grounding_ , Bee had told him, _are not that rare when facing trauma during a session. They’re not a good thing, because it means we have attacked something that’s still too big for us to defeat, but it is just a coping mechanism of the brain._

She said, _you have nothing to be ashamed of in letting these needs show, Andrew. You’re just trying to protect yourself, and that is perfectly fine. It will stay between us._

Well, not anymore, he guessed.

He could feel Aaron’s eyes taking in his curled up form, his mouth gaping in shock at the sheer _vulnerability_ — and a shiver tried to wrack him, but he fought it — of his brother, his own twin, side by side to him in a silent room, surrounded by the scent of chocolate and tea, and by the weeping darkness of their undefeated monsters.

Was he thinking about Drake, too? Was he remembering—

“Erik was there first.” The words burned Andrew’s throat, scraped away what little voice he could find in the anesthetized shape of his body. He would have never allowed such an admission to escape his lips, normally, but he felt pulled to his highest tolerance, ready to snap, desperate for anything, _anything_ , to ease the pressure.

To take _that_ memory away from him.

Aaron asked, confused: “First?”

Hell, why couldn’t he _ever_ get the hint?

Bee was staring at Andrew. She had to have caught his fall, and she was clearly now trying to asses whether he was getting back up on his own or if he needed help.

Andrew ignored her silent hand.

“Before I came—,” he said, “—before Nicky ever met me. Erik was there before me. I came in after.” He closed his eyes, refusing the pressure of both their gazes. “In foster homes, if things don’t work out, the last to arrive has to leave.” 

If you end up in a family, and you can’t get along with the gentle lady’s heavy-handed husband, you have to leave. If you don’t bond with the siblings who pick on you, you have to leave. 

_How funny_ , he thought. He’d never told this to Bee. Never or not yet, it was hard to tell. But still. Funny, right?  _Not really._

“Last one is replaceable,” he added. He opened his eyes again to look for Bee. He didn’t think he had been ready to face this, not when he had literal years left before having to face the rejection. “Erik was there first; I was the last one. If I couldn’t get along with Erik, why should have Nicky chosen me over him?”

Bee nodded slowly. With her, it wasn’t as much of an agreement as a gesture to show she had listened and understood, and she was thinking about it before returning him something for his honesty.

Aaron had clearly not been in therapy enough to read that, because he shot her a scandalized expression. His outrage was such that he even leant out of his corner, slightly toward her but much more toward Andrew.

“That’s not…” he started, then cursed. “Nicky wouldn’t have… _thrown you out_ or anything. He’s not like that!”

_How stupid can you be?_ “Erik saved Nicky’s life. That’s not something a bit of sympathy for a troubled, criminal, stranger of a cousin can beat.”

Aaron gaped. “Beat at what? It’s not a game!”

Andrew gritted his teeth, turned away from him again. “See, Bee? He doesn’t understand.”

Bee nodded, and then cocked her head to a side slightly. “I think Aaron is trying to explain something too, Andrew.” _Explain what? That he’s an imbecile?_ “I’d like to ask, though: do you still feel any kind of competition against Nicky’s boyfriend?”

He should have known she wouldn’t let this go back to the pile of issues he wasn’t going to face until the last possible moment.

Because she was Bee, he answered honestly. “There’s no point.”

“How come?” she asked. She had a way to make her words sound like what an embrace probably would feel.

Andrew twisted the mug in his hands a bit. “There’s no point in playing a game you already know you lost.” Some cocoa fell on his hand. He was surprised to find it lukewarm, not boiling hot anymore. It didn’t even sting, _sadly_. “Nicky’s going back to Germany after we graduate. It’s Erik’s win anyway.

Bee tapped her pen twice. “Do you think that him moving to Germany equals to him choosing Erik over the two of you?”

Did it matter what he thought, when those were just the facts? He shrugged, not willing to get into a long series of questions and answers that would be trying to make him change his mind. He wasn’t up for being set for another disappointment.

“No way!” Aaron exclaimed just then. Once again, Andrew wondered where all this fighting spirit had come from.

Bee looked at him slowly, almost reluctant in letting Andrew out of her focus, but when she addressed him she did so with a certain shade of hope to her voice. “Pardon me?”

“No fucking way,” Aaron repeated, certain. “That’s not how it’s going to be at all.” Again, he turned to Andrew, and the only reason Andrew turned to him too was the finger jagged in his direction. “And fuck _you_ , for thinking it!”

This time, Bee smiled openly at him. “You seem rather sure, Aaron. Why don’t you try to explain to Andrew what makes you think that?”

Andrew didn’t want Aaron’s explanation. He didn’t want Bee’s psychology. He didn’t want Nicky’s cheer. He didn’t want the emptiness he could see approaching, just behind the corner of graduation.

_Neil_ , said a voice in his head. But Neil was different, in a way Andrew was not ready to admit. And anyway, Neil alone wasn’t _enough_.

_He’ll have to be, because nobody is going to stick with you._

“Nicky is still here!” Aaron yelled. Andrew blinked, surprised at the outburst, surprised that he’d gone away again and this time maybe, just maybe, his brother had noticed. “He’s literally still here. He could have packed his stuff when we turned eighteen or when we graduated high school. He could have packed his stuff the day Wymack assured him he’d have Andrew and I covered.” Aaron blinked once. “Wait, is that why you asked for a scholarship for him too? Were you trying to…keep him here?”

_No. Yes. Maybe. Yes._

_Yes, yes, yes, y—_

“Nicky is a fucking disaster,” he said, because it was true. “He’s loud and annoying and doesn’t have the slightest concept of personal space or brain-mouth filter.” But he had driven them to school, and had helped them with German homework, and had brought ice-cream from his shifts at Sweetie’s. “He’s still the best home I’ve ever been in.” And then he added, because this was becoming too mushy, “And you still hated my guts so I needed him to look over you the way you wouldn’t let me.”

Aaron shook his head, incredulous, but Andrew didn’t have the strength to insist.

Ironically, his brother had gotten exactly what he wanted and what Andrew absolutely didn’t want to give: a peak on his vulnerable bits, a look at the cracks. And without giving anything back at all, as expected. To say Andrew’s plan had backfired was an euphemism.

Somehow, though, Aaron didn’t look satisfied, nor even pensive. He just looked hesitant, the portrait of a man with a secret on the tip of his tongue.

In the end, he was brave, but still enough of a coward to only look at Bee when he spilled it. “When Luther and Maria sent Nicky to the camp, he told me he was going away to study.” 

Andrew blinked. It wasn’t a surprise that Nicky had lied, not on such a topic, but that Aaron was willing to breach it. That after getting what he wanted, Aaron was willing to stick around and say _something_.

“I got mad, because he had promised we could play together the whole summer and mom never hit me when he was around because she was scared he would tell her brother.” _Dear, dear Tilda._ “I told him stuff, bad shit that I knew would hurt him. I was there when he came out to the family, I saw what his parents and my mom told him, but I did it anyway. I thought he was going somewhere with his other friends and was leaving me behind because I was the annoying younger cousin. We used to be really close before that.”

Bee nodded at Aaron, and only then Andrew noticed his brother had hunched forward. 

“I am sure Nicky doesn’t hold it against you. You were a child and you were scared. He understands,” she reassured. She wasn’t lying, because even rocks knew that Nicky couldn’t hold a grudge to save his life.

Aaron knew too, because he looked sincere when he nodded slightly. 

“A friend of his came to Luther’s house to ask about him one night, months later. He seemed mad, he was aggressive. He started saying that my family had probably killed Nicky and told Luther he would go to the police,” he said. “It scared me because I hadn’t heard from Nicky at all in that whole time. I tried to ask mom, but she got mad and told me to never ask again. I snuck around the next time we went to his house, searched every room I could, until I found the brochure of the camp in Luther’s drawer. I did a research when I was at school later.”

And then, voice trembling, _finally_ , he said, “And I realized that Nicky was not playing. And I felt bad because I told him those things before he left but I couldn’t take them back and on internet people were saying that not everybody comes back from those places, that some kids kill themselves.”

Andrew felt something. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but it had to do with Aaron admitting how great the abuse Nicky had faced was, with Aaron taking his side openly and clearly for once.

“What Nicky went through was horrible, but in no way your fault, Aaron,” Bee was saying. “I am sure you must have been scared.”

Aaron seemed surprised by her care, confused by the lack of accusations thrown his way. It took him a while to answer her. 

“I was scared he wouldn’t come back,” he admitted in the end, “I was scared he’d kill himself for what I told him.” 

He gulped loudly, and then suddenly he looked at Andrew. “When he came back, he was a shell of who he used to be. I was so glad he was alive, but the first time I saw him I thought he was dying. I guess he was, in a sense. But, when he saw me, he smiled a bit and said I had grown, that I looked good, and that he had missed me. He said he had meant to call, but couldn’t. He asked me if I had a good year.” In a whisper, he added, “I wanted to cry.” 

His words hung heavy in the air, and for a moment Bee stopped existing. Andrew watched his brother’s fragility with childish surprise, unable to fully take in the display offered in front of him.

Was that how he looked when he crumbled, too? He didn’t like it. He wanted it to stop.

Stop it did, when the moment passed and Aaron shook his head and frowned and huffed, as if to blow away the charge of the moment. “So yeah, I know that him going to Germany is not going to mean he will stop annoying the fuck out of us,” he grumbled. “So stop competing with Erik. If we ever had a real problem with him, Nicky would be able to start some kind of joint custody for himself and split the festivities between him and us.”

That would be ironic to see, considering Nicky had been their guardian first, but also oddly equilibrated, in some fucked up way.

Bee’s voice cut through his thoughts calling his name softly.

At first, he didn’t want to answer, but then a thought came to his mind. Slowly, he said, “Erik can have him for Christmas. He burns the cookies every year.”

Aaron nodded, without objections. “We can keep him for Thanksgiving. He makes good spicy food and Europeans don’t even have Thanksgiving anyway.”

They regarded each other carefully. That had been the closest to a civil conversation they’d had in years and it was leaving them both worn-out, skinned to the bone and generally weary enough to make it hard to wish for a repeat of the performance.

Bee bulled on as if she couldn’t read the awkwardness of the air between them. _Rotten two-timing liar._ “That sounds reasonable. Though, I’d suggest you try to bring these things up with Nicky, too. Andrew, it could help you with these insecurities, and, Aaron, maybe clarifying that old guilt may also help you have a better communication with him in the present.”

_Sure thing, let’s invite Nicky in too, next time. Why not Kevin and Neil too? Why not the whole team? Why not even the cheerleader?_

Bee waved his glare away with a flick of her hand. “Which brings us back to the beginning of this session, Aaron’s resentment toward Nicky for being able to freely be with his lover. Andrew, how do you feel about this?”

_Great. Moment’s over._ “I don’t like the cheerleader.”

Aaron, predictably, flared up. “She’s got a _name_ , Andrew, for fuck’s sake!”

Even Bee looked disappointed. She said, “Andrew,” but it sounded like, _one step forward and now to backward_.

“I don’t like _Katelyn_ , better that?” he huffed, mainly just to calm her down.

Nicky was a thing, Nicky was _family_. The cheerleader was _not_.

“You’ve never even talked to her! You started hating her on sight because I liked her! It’s like you’re doing it just out of spite!”

Andrew huffed sarcastically. “You’re not good at taking care of yourself. You make stupid decisions.”

“Yes, when I was seventeen and a fucking addicted, Andrew, come on! Don’t you think I can make better choices now?”

Andrew ignored his words. “She was not a part of the deal.”

“Neither was Josten!”

_No. Not going there, not now._ “Neil. Is. _Nothing_.”

Aaron’s mouth split into an ugly grimace. “Oh, please. You and I both know that’s utter—”

_Enough!_ “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

The baffled, “What?!” from Aaron was covered by Bee’s careful, “Why is it, Andrew?”

_I can’t, I can’t, I can’t do Nicky and also Neil, I can’t, not with Drake, not with Aaron, I can’t._

“I am tired.” God, wasn’t that the truth. “I don’t want to talk anymore and he’s not listening anyway.”  _As usual._

_Nobody listens, Andrew, how come you haven’t learnt it yet? You’re not that stupid._

“I am listening,” Aaron growled. “You’re the one who’s not! I am trying to tell you Katelyn is for me what Josten is for you!”

_No, he’s not!_ “I’m done here!” 

He didn’t give them the chance to stop him. He stood up and left and ignored the cocoa splashing the front of his jeans and the clinking sound of his mug falling to the floor.

A tiny, childish part of him resurfaced as he made it to the car and started it without waiting to see if Aaron had followed him. It was feeling smug at the thought of his brother being stood up in these sessions that he so much wanted to take part to, being left alone with Bee, being left behind as he had done that other time.

Still, he noticed when Aaron didn’t come back before another hour, which was much longer than the walk from Bee’s study would have taken had he left immediately after him. Andrew ignored it. He just sat on his bed and let Neil bring him ice cream and sit beside him as he watched some Exy match on his PC.

Some days were just too much to deal with.

 

 

The following Wednesday, Andrew skipped the appointment for the first time ever. Bee called, and he answered because it wasn’t her that he didn’t want to see.

“ _If you want to put an end to these joint sessions, I will not oppose.”_

“Are you giving up, Dr Dobson? Such a sad day for humanity.”

“ _It’s not about me giving up on you two, Andrew. It’s about you two giving up on each others._ ”

Yeah, that was what he feared. “It’s pathetic.”

“ _The therapy or how much you want it to work?_ ”

He smirked in the darkness of his room. “Ouch, Bee.”

“ _Andrew. Come back._ ”

“Not today,” which wasn’t the same as ‘ _never_ ’ so she should cut him some slack.

“ _Aaron wants it to work too,_ ” she added before he could hung up on her, so he threw his phone at the wall and watched it break open.

Fuck Betsy Dobson.

 

 

“You know what? I’m too glad to see you joining us in the twenty-first century to be mad that you let out your anger on some material possession. Again.”

Andrew ignored Nicky’s cheeky smile and focused on trying to figure his way out of the maze of colorful icons on the stupid ass touch screen.

“Just shove all those that you’re never gonna use in another screen and keep the ones you like on the main one.”

He kept the mess on his main screen just to spite Aaron.

 

 

He came back to the sessions, eventually. He found Aaron there already, since they were on a break from practice and he had been over at the cheerleader’s place the previous night.

Andrew strived not to gag.

Bee was asking Aaron how Katelyn was. He gave her some circumstantial answer as they both waited for Andrew to sit down, heavily and loudly, and for the aura around him to contaminate the room with gloomy feelings.

After a good five minutes of obstinate silence, Aaron sighed. He _sighed. How dare._

“You know, I’m the one who wants to talk about Nicky, now,” he said, as if Andrew didn’t have already enough reasons to kill him. “I want to know why you never made a deal with him.”

Andrew frowned at him. He was getting tired of repeating the obvious. “He’s not going to stay.”

Aaron huffed — _huffed!_ — at him. “Not here. Not in the States, alright. But do you really believe he won’t be calling and sending stupid texts at every fucking hour of the day?, especially now that you have a new phone that doesn’t come from the Jurassic? He’s just that much of an annoying cousin. But that’s still not the point.”

Before Andrew could intervene, Bee did. She seemed to be learning, from time to time. “What is it that you want to know, exactly, Aaron?”

Aaron turned to her, chin raised. “I want to know what I have to do to have him the way Nicky does. Without a deal.”

Andrew crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Nicky is annoying. I’m not going to miss him.”

This time, Aaron snorted, and Andrew decided that the next weird sound would see one of his blades in his brother’s neck. “Oh, sure, right. I may not be a shrink, but I can recognize denial, Andrew.”

“Bee, scold him, he’s being rude to you.”

Bee, betrayer once more, just smiled in good spirit at him. “I find Aaron’s humor to be quite to my liking, actually, Andrew. And he makes a good point.” She tapped her notebook with her pen and then opened her hands a bit. “We made lots of progress on the matter of recognizing and accepting that you may care for certain things and people, I think this is the moment to keep pushing on that path.”

_I think the fuck not._

“Everybody knows you care for Nicky,” Aaron butted in, as if he had any _right_. “You fought those guys for him! The only one who might doubt it is Nicky himself, but he doubts everything every once in a while. And I know you care for Kevin and you care for Neil.” _You bring up Neil one more time—_ “And for me.”

Andrew blinked. Aaron was flushed red to the roots of his hair, but he kept on. “I know you care for me. In your own way, but you do. And I care for you too, it’s just— It wasn’t working, with the deal. Is it that hard to try and find some other way to make this work?”

Shit, had Aaron kept on going to session with Bee when Andrew didn’t show up? This was too well thought to be coming up on the spur of the moment.

He shot a glare at Bee, but she just smiled encouragingly at him. She was proving herself less useful and more annoying every week, he should point it out to her.

Aaron had given him something, though; an admission, for as little as it was.

He thought, _Neil already knows. Neil knew before I even did._ He said, “You said that Katelyn was for you what Neil is for me.”

Aaron shrugged. “You tell me, you’re the one with the eidetic memory.”

Andrew glared at him, but Aaron was already shrinking under the eyes of Bee — _thank fuck!_ — so he ignored the comment.

“That’s not how it is,” and he was being honest. “It’s not the same because I never _meant_ for him to be.”

He waited for the blast, for the explosion; for the denial and the refusal and the implied _I know better than_ _you’_ s. He got silence instead.

Aaron was biting his lips and looking at Bee. “I don’t understand, Andrew,” he admitted, finally, minutes later. “I’m trying, I really am, but I don’t.”

Obviously he didn’t. Aaron wasn’t as fucked up as him.

“When I say that Neil is nothing, is because—” 

_Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, he’ll use it against you, Bee won’t let him, she can’t stop him, he won’t do it, he would, he won’t, he cares, he won’t._

“—I’m trying to convince myself that I still have a way out of this.” 

That it was still something inconsequential and brief that did not hold any kind of power over him. 

“I don’t want him to be _something_ ,” he said, raw in his honesty. “I don’t want to give him the chance to hurt me.” He was looking at Bee now, she knew he was. “I tried, I tried, I keep trying, but every time it’s a bit deeper and I am a bit further from the surface and I _hate it_.” 

Aaron looked lost, mouth open on a confused word — _why, why, why_ , always _why_ — that Andrew broke through his lips.

“I hate that he’s making me feel, I hate that he’s a goddamn liar that cannot be fucking trusted, I hate that he knows sixteen different ways to disappear into nothingness in a day. I hate him because he makes me vulnerable and I can’t fucking stand it, because the last time I let someone be my weakness it was  _Cass._ ”And look at how that turned out.

_Come here, AJ. One last fuck in memory of the old times, uh?_

“Andrew.”

_Damn, you’ve gotten old. Guys your age are not my type at all, to be honest, but I’ll make an exception for you. You’ve always been prettier than all other boys, you know?_

“Andrew!”

Andrew opened his eyes and didn’t see a bloody pillow on a bloody bed in a pious house.

He saw the ground and a stain of cocoa and the floor digging into Bee’s knees. A stray thought hit him, that she was getting old to go through all the stress the Foxes unloaded on her. But she was looking at him with strength in her eyes and a hand open in front of his chest. 

The other, it was outstretched toward Aaron. He heard her say, “Don’t touch him. He’s not yet back completely.”

“Where does he go?” Aaron was asking, his voice a faint echo under the sound of Andrew’s breath. “When he leaves like this?”

“Who knows?” Bee said, voice sad. She knew, but she kept his secrets, always. _Bee_. “Never in good places, though.”

That was the fucking understatement of the century and Andrew almost laughed out loud at that.

Instead, he pushed himself off the floor. Just that much he needed to plop back down on the couch, but it was a starting point. Bee stood on the floor one second longer before apparently deciding it was better to accept Andrew’s self-assessment. 

_Of course you know you’re prettier. You always paraded yourself around like a slut. Look at these skinny jeans. You asked for it back then, and you’re asking for it now._

_“_ Shut! Up!”

“Andrew.” Bee. Bee, Bee, Bee. _I didn’t ask for it, Bee, tell him I didn’t._ “Whatever is happing in your mind, it’s not real. You’re in my study, you’re with me and you’re with Aaron. You’re at PSU. You’re safe. Can you tell me where you are?”

_Aaron is downstairs, I’ve seen him. Too bad I didn’t get you both when you were younger, but better late than never, right? I’m gonna get him up here after I’m done with you._

“Aaron.”

“I’m here? Andrew, I’m here. I’m— You’re safe. Did you hear what Dobson said? Do you know where you are?”

Andrew almost bursted out laughing. Aaron playing therapist; now he really could believe this was all an hallucination.

_Aaron killed him._ Neil had told him. Nicky had told him. Kevin had told him. Bee had told him multiple times. Aaron never really said it, but the trial was coming closer and sooner he’d have to.

Andrew wondered if hearing his brother saying it would finally make him believe it.

“I’m here,” he said, because he could feel the couch under his ass and the smell of cocoa and he could see Aaron’s scared expression from the corner of his eye. 

Aaron looked at Bee as if asking if he could believe him. Andrew’s arm swiped at him, and caught him not too strongly in the stomach.

“Alright,” Bee said, sounding all but. “No violence in here. Andrew, if you want we can stop now and tackle something else, or just focus on some exercises. I think you’d both get something out of those, anyway.”

He nodded, saying nothing, and Bee walked them through some things he already knew. He expected Aaron to complain, but he didn’t.

The hour ended soon. They left in silence. Andrew gave Aaron a ride.

It was weird.

 

 

Aaron woke up that night in terror. Visions of Drake flashed still before his eyes in the dark room so he got up and left it as fast as he could. He plopped himself on the couch and turned the TV on in mute mode just to have something to lighten up the room.

He wondered where Andrew went when he left during the sessions, who was with him, who talked to him. He wished he could kill them all.

“Aaron? What are you doing up so early?” Nicky’s sleepy voice almost made him jumped out of his skin. He really shouldn’t have been surprised that his retreat had woken his cousin up, but he still felt a bit guilty. 

His cousin fell on the couch beside him with a yawn, and Aaron stared without answering.

_Fix this up,_ sounded Andrew’s voice in his brain. He almost ignored it.

“Someone came looking for you, when you were at the camp.”

He knew he had taken Nicky by surprise, but the way he went so utterly still at the last word still shook him. His cousin was always cheery, always loud. Did he get sucked to other places too, sometimes?, did he leave like Andrew?, who was there to yell at him?

“Who?”

Aaron told him what he could remember of the guy, and Nicky nodded to himself, but offered no names. “We fucked once.”

“You were sixteen.”

“I was trying to explore and to punish myself at the same time, back then.”

“Oh.” Aaron said, “I’m sorry.” He said it for too many things, but Nicky seemed to get it. He put a hand on Aaron’s knee, and it felt almost enough. “Bee said it was time to tell you about this,” he said, hoping Nicky got the hint.

Nicky kind of did, because he blinked at him. “Wait, you and Andrew talk about me in your sessions? No. Sorry, I know, don’t ask, it’s between you two and Bee, I know.” He pressed the heels of his hands on his eyes. “Ugh, it’s too early for me. I’m gonna get some of Kev’s vodka.”

Aaron watched him stand up. “It’s seven in the morning.”

Nicky turned just to arch a brow at him. “Was that supposed to object to the ‘ _it’s too early_ ’ part or to the vodka part? Because it didn’t work either way.”

Aaron snorted and let him go.

Nicky came back half an hour later, not with vodka but with a tower of pancakes. “I’d say we call Andrew too, but if we wake him up so early he will kill us.”

“Just save some,” Aaron shrugged, faking nonchalance. “You should bring them to him later.”

In his defense, despite looking absolutely flabbergasted by the idea of the twins pushing niceties in each other’s path, Nicky just nodded and ate his share in silence.

Aaron did the same.

 

 

The next session, Andrew looked more relaxed. Aaron had no illusion that the reason for it were the pancakes, but it still took a weight off his back. He had made a decision in the past days, and had communicated it to Bee via text a few days ago; now it was all a matter of having Andrew listen to him.

“Mom always promised me she would get better, when I was little.”

In hindsight, maybe blurting it out like that wasn’t exactly the best idea. Andrew’s glare and stiff shoulders sure said so. Bee looked almost exasperated for a moment, but then she nodded at him to continue.

Aaron had gotten, if nothing else, that his brother hated people who half-assed what they did.

“She would give me fifteen dollars and send me to the lady in the floor under ours to buy all the beer she would give us for that much,” he continued. “And she would promise, every time, that if I did she would stop after those beers, that those would be the last. Obviously she never meant it.” A shrug with fake indifference. “I guess that’s why promises mean jack shit to me.”

Andrew was staring and Aaron would swear he had yet to blink once. What the fuck was wrong with him?

“Then why—” his brother said finally, before Bee could step in, “—did you make one with me?”

Aaron remembered the first time he used those dollars for himself, when he chugged all the beers on the stairs before going back in and throwing the empty cans on the floor. He remembered the beating he got, the kicks and the punches and the scratches, the screams. He remembered being twelve, Andrew had probably been moving in with the Spears at that time.

He remembered the dullness of the high making the blows feel less awful, less hurtful, like they were landing on someone else’s body. It was good, or better than being lucid anyway.

To his brother, he told the truth. “Because I really needed those fifteen dollars.”

 

 

For the next weeks, they didn’t address what they had admitted to each others. They couldn’t, because it was almost time for Aaron’s trial, so they worked on their testimonies instead. They worked on reigning in Aaron’s rage and acclimating Andrew to the idea that he’d have to talk about what Drake had done to him in front of a room full of strangers.

It sucked. They left Bee’s study always hurting all over, exhausted, willing only to curl up on the respective beds and shut the world out for another six days more or less.

Andrew didn’t know what possessed Aaron to say, one day, in the car as they went back to the dorms, “Nicky will cry.”

Andrew didn’t answer him, because it wasn’t a question, but Aaron snickered to himself. “He so will. He always does. And you know what’s fucked up? That it will be the only normal thing of the past fucking month.”

Andrew considered it.

He nodded once, and Aaron seemed content with that.

 

 

No amount of preparation could have made him hold his rage when he saw Cass outside the tribunal. 

Aaron wanted to bash the racquet in her head too. He wanted to scream at her that how could she never notice?, how could it have happened under her nose without her knowing? She was just as guilty, she had no right to cry.

Andrew was a statue. Stone still, unmovable, cold. Aaron wanted to go to him, but he didn’t because he didn’t know how to help and Josten did.

Josten.

Aaron watched him hover around his brother, never touching and never talking, sometimes offering the water bottle he had with him. Andrew always took that.

Aaron stuck to Nicky, let Bee be the ferry boat between him and his twin, and he admitted one thing to himself.

Aaron only hated Neil because it was easier than hating Andrew.

The bailiff called them all inside.

 

 

They won. It didn’t feel like victory at all.

Katelyn hugged him in her room as he cried, because a bunch of strangers telling them they were right didn’t erase the marks from Andrew’s arms, didn’t dissipate the nightmares of blood and sheets and maniac laughters.

He called Bee next morning and set up an appointment for himself. Alone.

 

 

They waited for Bee to finish with her previous appointment, and they sat next to each other for once. Aaron shot a text to Katelyn to let her know he would be busy for the next hour and Andrew played with the keys of his car.

It was the first session after the trial. They were both just faking being okay, more so than usual.

Aaron pocketed his phone, and Andrew stopped his fingers.

“You were never meant to be in the same room as _him._ ” Andrew didn’t need to specify who _him_ was. Aaron felt a familiar prick of anger rise in his chest, and strived to keep it in check. 

“I’m glad I was,” he replied. “I’m glad I was there, Andrew. And if I could go back in time, I’d just go upstairs first thing as we got into Luther’s house and bash his brains out _before_ he could touch you.”

Bee’s door opened and she appeared there with a soft smile. They both got up and walked to her.

Shit, there was still so much to talk about.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come and yell at me on Tumblr at @agapantoblu (except, please, don't yell, I'm sensitive).
> 
> This drained me, seriously. I've switched POV from twin to twin so many times and they both have such complex minds and have been through so much bad stuff that now I feel like I need to sleep for a decade to get my energies back. It's almost twice as long as Therapy Session was, which is kind of ironic since it also has twice the patients in it. Duh.


End file.
